


Cleansing

by Mithen



Category: Lucha Underground
Genre: Blood, Episode Tag, F/M, Hair Washing, Hurt/Comfort, Masks, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 23:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6829984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After her battle with Mariposa, a battered but triumphant Sexy Star seeks rest and healing with the Mack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cleansing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RedLeaderfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedLeaderfic/gifts).



She is bloody and unbowed.

She holds on to Mack’s arm as they leave the Temple together and go out into the night--not as if seeking his support, but as if giving her strength to him. He’s seen a lot of violence in his life, but the sight of Sexy Star’s blood raining down on the people below has left him shaken. He had asked if she wanted to clean up, and she shook her head: “Not here,” she murmured. “One can get vengeance here. And strength. It’s good. But it is not clean.” She had buried her head in his shoulder for a moment. “I wish to be clean once more.”

So here he is, turning the key in the lock of his crummy little apartment and letting her in.

“I’m sorry,” he says helplessly as she looks around his place: the dusty blinds, the dishes in the sink. He tries to kick a pair of underwear under the sofa. “This place isn’t clean either.”

Her smile beneath the blood and the mask is blinding. “Yes it is,” she says simply.

He shows her to the bathroom. “You should take that off,” he says, and moves to touch her mask, but she pulls back, shaking her head. There’s no rejection in it, only truth: her true face belongs to her alone; it is not his to see.

“I want to help you,” he says, and sees his hands open and close in the air between them. “Let me help.”

She looks at him for a long moment, and he feels like all of his soul can be read in that piercing, star-like gaze: his own need to be in this story a support, a force for healing. He feels small and selfish in the light of that look, but she smiles as if he has given her a gift.

Then she reaches out and, with gentle, bloody hands, closes his eyes.

He draws a deep, shaking breath. “I won’t look,” he says.

“I know,” she murmurs, and puts his hands to her mask.

He’s working blind, but she’s patient with him. She lets him lift the mask from her face, hissing only slightly as drying scabs are torn once more. The world narrows to this work, to this moment: the smell of harsh soap, the sound of water, the feel of her hair in his hands, each strand a unique miracle. The cheap washcloth is rough against his skin; he wishes it were silk.

“Is it okay?” he asks once, and his voice rings oddly off the tiles.

“It is good,” she says. 

The tackiness of blood beneath his fingers fades; the cruel scent of it washes away. She takes his hands and lets them trace her face, lets him feel the lines and contours of it, the strength of the bones beneath. Her cheeks are wet beneath his fingers. He doesn’t need to open his eyes; he knows her by heart now. 

She lets him bathe her blood-spattered limbs, and he feels her fingers trembling--with exhaustion, with reaction. Maybe with something else, something that seems to hang between them now, full of light. No need to explore it tonight. Tonight is for healing, for restoration. For redemption.

“Gracias,” she whispers when he is done, and he feels her lean forward and press a kiss, light and fleeting, to each of his eyelids. 

She seems to shine against his closed eyes like a star indeed, luminous and clean; in her light he too is cleansed.


End file.
